Skittering fingertips
by scarlet-egg
Summary: Man, but tall, dark and handsome used to be a GOOD thing.


Simone wasn't worried.

There was a time when this kind of thing might have prompted alarm, but even _then_ she would have been more likely to shove a camera in its face and demand an interview than to run in the opposite direction, screeching at the tops of her lungs and flailing her arms wildly. She had been called many things in the past - some of them might have even been _true_ \- but no-one had ever accused her of being a _coward_.

See, it used to be that tall, dark and handsome meant an evening of charming smirks and expensive wine, and apparently _now_ it just meant too-many blades under naked light bulbs and blank canvases where faces should be - and she'd be a pretty damned useless journalist if she couldn't adapt to _that_ kind of inevitable change, wouldn't she. She stamped down on the flicker of uncertainty, clung to the logical rationality she was so well-known for, and acknowledged the facts: without a leather apron in sight, this was _clearly_ just a combination of too-little sleep and too-much _glug-glug_ , topped off with a healthy dose of those hysterics womenfolk were so prone to indulging in when they were left unsupervised.

After all, what were the chances of walking into _two_ murderous ghosts in the same lifetime? She didn't have the statistics on hand, but if Simone was to take an educated guess on the matter, she'd have to claim somewhere in the general vicinity of _pretty fucking unlikely_.

The blonde snorted at that, shuffling away as her train of thought went chug-chugging off towards a glorious land of fractions and distractions and pie charts with brightly coloured lines. She stumbled, tripping over nothing, bouncing off her hip and ending in a giggling sprawl beneath the window. The curtains fluttered far above, and when she flopped onto her back, Simone found her feet tangled up in the legs of the small table.

Then the whole thing came crashing down.

Well, so to speak - it wasn't nearly as dramatic as _crashing_ implied. The candleholder hit the wall with a _thunk!_ and the candle snapped in two, while the wineglass dropped like a dead weight to shatter into a million-billion pieces, glittering in the rug like little drops of starlight. The bottle alone remained intact; it thudded and began rolling towards her, leaving a dark trail in its wake, and she watched its progress with no small amount of amusement.

Not for the first time, the absolute _absurdity_ of her life hit her, and Simone began to giggle anew. Her foot throbbed and there was a tall figure stalking towards her - _(a creature on a mission, not about to be dissuaded by_ _ **tact**_ _or_ _ **begging**_ _or_ _ **reason**_ _)_ \- and she could not, for the life of her, figure out why any of it even _mattered_ anymore.

Look, guys! Over here! Pay attention to this stunning display of grace and- and - and _gracefulness_ , from the fallen queen of prime time journalism!

It couldn't be real, Simone understood - _everyone_ died eventually so that wasn't too hard to swallow, but the impractical weapon she was supposedly going to die by was a little bit much. And on top of that, to set the stage _now_? _Here_? With the radio blaring pop songs, the lights burning merrily away, and the skies outside devoid of even a _rumble_ of thunder?

 _Please_ , this was the opposite of the dramatic ending she was destined for. No way was she about to settle.

Oh yes, despite what the rumours might claim, the great and mighty Simone fucking _Taylor_ \- former darling of the BBC, current professional lush - _did_ still have enough wits left to know the difference between impending death and drunken delusion. In fact, going by past experience, any moment now she was going to wake up with her head a-poundin' and her stomach a-heavin', and she wouldn't even _remember_ what was making her heart go pitter-patter so fast by the time she reached the toilet.

There was absolutely _nothing_ to worry about.

...And if this _was_ really happening - which it _couldn't_ be - it would have gone a hell of a lot differently. The door would have exploded as that _jackass_ pranced in, saving the damsel in distress with all the snarky charm he thought he possessed - because god _forbid_ he not be the hero of the story, wasn't _that_ right? Simone could handle it, though, because the least he could do after all the emotional and intellectual trauma his _Little Stunt_ had caused was bother to show up and get in the way.

And then - _then!_ because she'd had this all worked out for a while now - he could just sit in that damn chair in the corner, stewing in his immature assholery until she was sober enough to remember what she wanted to say. There were many things rattling around that pretty blonde head of hers, and there weren't enough murderous jerks in her entire subconscious to deny her that satisfaction, let alone currently in the _room_.

They had told her the cat burglar was probably dead by now, but she'd never bought it for a second - what kind of ending would _that_ be? Pah! The fools.

Even with her head full of cobwebs and her mouth stuffed with cotton wool, Simone _still_ knew How Things Worked more than They did. _She_ got the importance of a dramatic ending, and _she_ knew that hers wasn't coming in a trashy apartment at the hands of a faceless stick figure. She snorted, shaking her head to dismiss the lingering concerns, and groped for her fallen ally - but the bottle was just out of reach, and all she could manage to do was skitter her fingertips uselessly over the smooth neck.

Yeah, it would just _shock_ them to find out how much she still knew, even now.

So it was funny, considering how sure she was - it was almost laugh-out-loud _hilarious_ just how real the blade felt when it finally came swinging down.


End file.
